Bio Breakhttps://biobreak.wordpress.com
Sun, 02 Aug 2015 21:58:37 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/098ad17995b0ec8ca5ee66071388d8be?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngBio Breakhttps://biobreak.wordpress.com
Project Gorgon: Syp has a big headhttps://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/project-gorgon-moo-ving-right-along/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/project-gorgon-moo-ving-right-along/#commentsSun, 02 Aug 2015 13:00:16 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23715Continue reading →]]>Another day, another delightful outing in Project Gorgon. By the way, congrats to that team for busting through their Kickstarter goal in six days — I’m rooting for them to make $50K by the time it’s said and done.

So I logged in to find that my offline “hanging out” activity had completed with Lawara (aka “amnesiac cave girl”). Some nice flavor text as a result, along with more favor and unarmed XP. Got a couple of new skills in unarmed, actually, so I took off my sword and spent some time cobra striking pigs.

That’s Syp. Hero and professional pig-killer. Hey, can you kill a pig with your bare hands? It’s tougher than it sounds.

Some people in chat told me that Lawara can help me with my lice problem by giving me a comb if my favor gets high enough, so I’m working on that for the time being. Hygene is important (and a game stat).

I couldn’t let my curiosity go. I just HAD to find out what happened if I died to the tutorial cave boss. And now I know: It curses me with a big head.

I mean, people have accused me of having a big head, but this is silly. Silly AWESOME. The big head effect means I can’t wear helms until I get the curse lifted, but it did compensate a bit by bestowing me with +25 power.

I tried to take on the mega-spider again with another player, but I bit the dust pretty hard on it. I got a weird debuff afterward saying that I couldn’t see green for an hour due to a delusion, although the game continued to show that color anyway. It was suggested that I roleplay it, although I don’t know how I could pull that off other than randomly shouting, “HARK! That grass is stark grey!”

Anyway, you’d think that having lice, a big head, and a “can’t see green” delusion would be annoying, but it’s actually incredibly immersive. Instead of being on combat autopilot, I’m feeling engaged and entertained by the game world, willing to go along with temporary inconveniences because there’s a path to solving them.

Back out of the cave I spent some time investigating my menu options. The skill menu is pretty important to keep tabs on the scads of skills this game throws at you (I have around 15 or so right now). It not only shows you your progress on each, but what rewards you’ll get for level milestones. Some skills, such as dying or combat, have buttons for more information and to rearrange abilities. Here, I’m showing you all of the ways that I’ve died so far. How many MMOs ever bother to track that? Not many, I can tell you.

Oh, another nice UI feature: there’s a sort button for inventory. That’s very helpful, because the inventory is a mess of tiny icons otherwise.

From what people are telling or hinting to me in global chat, Project Gorgon is made up of five open world zones right now, and what you see on your map is the full (square) zone. There’s no larger world map at the moment. You can annotate your map with pins, and the more you level up cartography (which I do not have), the more pins you can put in.

So the zones look like they’re managable in size, which actually makes me feel better. I like the feeling of smaller zones that are insanely content-rich for explorers.

Here I found a giant stonehenge-thing wiht a warning sign. Syp likes to ignore warnings because Syp is a cat with eight lives left. This is why Syp found himself dying quickly to a guardian elemental.

When I rezzed, I was in a tavern in the middle of the town that I don’t even know the name of, because this is my first time there. I wasn’t ready to go to the town yet! One thing at a time, game!

Someone told me that the elves in Project Gorgon are sex-crazed maniacs. I haven’t encountered many yet to verify that, although outside of the tavern I caught two elf ladies talking about human male anatomy and “only having one down there.” I had a lot of questions about this, but wisely decided to walk away briskly.

One last little detail I noticed before I logged out — a board that allowed you to toggle on a “hardcore death penalty.” Of COURSE Project Gorgon lets you choose your own death penalty. I am not this hardcore, however. I’m still struggling with lice.

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/project-gorgon-moo-ving-right-along/feed/5Sypinv1inv2inv3inv4inv5inv6inv7inv8New keyboard day!https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/new-keyboard-day/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/new-keyboard-day/#commentsSat, 01 Aug 2015 20:38:30 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23740Continue reading →]]>My old keyboard gave up the ghost the other day and I had been relying on the somewhat-adequate Amazon basic keyboard since. In the meanwhile I did some research on getting a new keyboard and had a few places convince me to give mechanical keyboards a try, especially since they’re supposed to be better for people who do a lot of typing. Which I do. Apparently.

So today I got my new Nixeus keyboard, prancing into the room while my wife wondered aloud why a grown man of my gravitas would be excited about getting a new keyboard.

Typing out this post is the first thing I’m doing on it. It’s faster and easier to use, for sure, although the board is much “chunkier” than my old one. It’s also smaller, lacking the ten number keys on the right-hand side. That will be better for my desk, which wasn’t big to begin with and has to hold my computer tower in addition to the mouse, keyboard, and monitor. It might require some relearning of finger memory, since I used the side numbers to do graphics resizing.

It’s also louder. I guess that’s a good thing? Some people like it more. I am indifferent to that — both quiet and loud are fine, although it will make typing while podcasting problematic (mute switch!).

Some people claim that mechanical keyboards are better for gaming. Again, I’ll have to see and chances are that I’m not leet enough to notice the difference. But I do appreciate a keyboard that works and doesn’t hog the entire desk.

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/new-keyboard-day/feed/6SypkeyboardMarvel Heroes: The sound of my DOOM! *toot*https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/marvel-heroes-the-sound-of-my-doom-toot/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/marvel-heroes-the-sound-of-my-doom-toot/#commentsSat, 01 Aug 2015 11:51:23 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23705Continue reading →]]>I’ve returned to Doctor Doom for my leveling focus in Marvel Heroes, and I couldn’t be more pleased. He might be way overplayed these days, but who cares? He’s a hoot of a personality and has tons of fun skills. I can see why he earned the prestige of being the second anniversary hero release.

After some initial reservations about it, I did pick up his God Emperor costume. This outfit fortunately looks a lot better in-game than it does on the costume screen and is way better than his other two ensembles. I really like the detail on his armor and how there’s less robe in the front.

With Doom using Pirate Deadpool as a sidekick, the quotes are coming from the two fast and furious. Doom is so over-the-top pompous that he’s quickly endearing himself to me as a favorite villain (I never really read the Fantastic Four comics, and the less said about the movies to date, the better). He’s constantly insulting heroes running by him, although I know that he and Squirrel Girl have a bit of a rivalry. I hope they’re both OK with me playing them. And Pirate Deadpool? He keeps cracking me up, especially when he spouted out a Simpsons quote.

What I really like about playing Doom as a summoner is that he’s as straight-forward as can be. Hit button, summon doombot/giant robot/small army. Let them do the dirty work while running around shooting off missiles and picking up goodies. That’s all I really want in life.

I’m going to fast-track him to 60 with the next Midtown Monday. He’s low on the gear side right now (although he’s just level 39). I haven’t researched what gear he’ll need to be a halfway decent endgame summoner, although I do have a few pieces stashed away that he’ll use. And I get a kick out of his uniques’ flavor text, such as this one for a sea horn:

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/marvel-heroes-the-sound-of-my-doom-toot/feed/1Sypdoom1doom2Blaugust returns!https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/blaugust-returns/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/blaugust-returns/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 13:00:04 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23702Continue reading →]]>Tomorrow marks the return of Belghast’s annual blogger event, Blaugust. Started a few years ago, Blaugust was Bel’s way of encouraging the blogging community to commit to 31 days of blog posts, kind of like how NaNoWriMo does earlier on in the summer. I think it’s a fine idea, since it’s completely voluntary and serves as great motivation to those wanting to get back on the blogging horse or those open to a fun experiment.

I’m down for it, of course. I don’t usually blog on the weekend, but I think I could prep a couple of posts to cover those days. It’s been a little quieter than normal here at Bio Break as of late, mostly because I’m going through two intense weeks of work — last week was our summer teen mission trip and this week is the church’s VBS. As a result, I’ve had very little time to write, nevermind catch up on reading the hundreds of blog posts in my reader.

So I’m looking forward to things calming down (relatively). I would like to get back to Star Trek 25th Anniversary at some point too, but that’s way down on the priority list at the moment.

Anyway, good luck to my fellow… Blaugustinians (?). May the writing bug bite you in a tender location and inspire you to ever-greater word counts.

Marvel Heroes: Last night I made it my mission to acquire the free Pirate Deadpool team-up from the secret achievement chain that was recently added to the game. Not that I really needed another team-up — I’m pretty much swimming in them at this point — but free is free, and who wouldn’t want a sarcastic pirate shadowing them?

Start to finish, it took me about an hour and a half to do. The tricky part was that most of the achievements didn’t trigger until I teleported back to a hub, which meant that I kept having to head back to see if I had acquired the next step or not. I took Squirrel Girl along for this one because she can roflstomp just about anything now and that’s pretty fun to see.

Our new guild, Massively Underpowered, is growing by leaps and bounds! It’s great to see bloggers, friends, and MOP readers join the conversation. If you want to hook up with us, look for Sypster, Braxwolf, or Angyll in-game.

Project Gorgon: It’s really exciting to see the Kickstarter continue to push forward, as it’s growing by $1-2K a day. Up to $16,400 as of this writing and plenty of time left. Here’s hoping they shoot past the goal this weekend and get a lot more than expected by the time all is said and done. I’m glad that it’s getting more press and word-of-mouth this time around.

World of Warcraft: Looks like Blizzard is going to announce the newest expansion next week instead of waiting until November’s BlizzCon, which is a smart move. Lots of anxious and disgruntled WoW players out there over the short expansion cycle, so here’s hoping that Blizzard is going to not only tell the community what the expansion is but also announce that it will be coming a lot sooner than expected.

Lord of the Rings Online: I still haven’t re-installed LOTRO since getting the new computer so I’m not part of the current drama/migration of the server merges. It is something that needed to happen, and I can only pray that Turbine handles it smartly without shredding too many of its sub-communities.

SWTOR: I ran a flashpoint last night — the Nar Shaddaa one, I forget the name — and started to doubt my Twi’lek’s destiny as a healer. Oh, I healed just fine, although it is frustrating to do so with such a limited array of tools. I don’t know how the bodyguard heals at higher levels, but right now it feels like running around with bandaids when people are losing limbs.

So I did take a peek at the two DPS builds for the merc and mulled over if I want to keep pushing forward as a healer or to just wimp out and give myself some serious firepower. No change yet, but long slogs through flashpoints while tossing out ineffectual heals and overheating are not endearing me to healing right now.

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/pirates-expansions/feed/1SyppirateProject Gorgon: First impressions — or first kisshttps://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/project-gorgon-first-impressions-or-first-kiss/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/project-gorgon-first-impressions-or-first-kiss/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 13:00:10 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23666Continue reading →]]>I… don’t know what’s come over me. I really don’t. A few days ago, Project: Gorgon was that interesting indie MMO with a terribad name, and now I’ve become a Kickstarter supporter (my first pledge ever) while raving to anyone I can find about how innovative and clever and funny this title is. Maybe it needed the bad name and 2003-era graphics to ward the mainstream off, lest it be overrun beyond control? I don’t know, but I will tell you that merely going through the tutorial the other night severely impressed me with the potential on display.

I mean, most tutorials and beginner zones in MMOs are tame affairs with killing, a light story, and not much else. Here, I lived a full RPG life merely trying to get through a cave. That says something to me.

So this was a first in my MMO career: I was killed (knocked out?) on the character creation screen. Seriously. I clicked “create character” and she was gunned down by these creepy-looking women, all without changing the scene. I was shocked for a moment and then laughed my head off because it’s still possible to be surprised by these games. “Hi, welcome to our game! Now you’re dead!”

Project: Gorgon isn’t your same-old MMO. While it handles very similarly (hotbars, movement, etc.), what it really is is a skill-based RPG that is as much — or more — about exploration than combat. This is a game that wants you to go poking around and learning its insane number of skills, from mushroom picking to (I kid you not) dying. Yes, you can level up in dying.

It’s not going to win any beauty awards, although it’s not as hideous as some have claimed. Hopefully the new Kickstarter campaign will fund and provide for better graphics, because the core gameplay is surprisingly solid (and this for an alpha). You walk around, click on things, and see what options are available. Gradually, you pick up more skills and have more interactions with the world, from picking mushrooms to crafting spore bombs to taming rats to performing autopsies on corpses.

Again, this is all stuff you end up doing before you ever leave the tutorial. It’s beyond nutty. Oh, and if you get bored? There’s a mini-game in the menu that challenges you to find as many words within a big word before a time limit runs out. Just because.

This dead elf put another plus in the game’s favor.

So I slowly, methodically explored the tutorial cave. Some of the animations — jumping, particularly — felt very basic and slippery, although combat clicked for me. Speaking of, combat’s an interesting bag here. You can equip two schools of combat at any one time, with two six-slot hotbars offering skills from each. For example, I had both archery and sword fighting going, allowing for both ranged and melee attacks. Skills for the hotbars are gradually unlocked as you level up, and most are pretty self-explanatory. I really appreciated that targeting a creature and then hitting a skill would auto-move your character into range to use that skill.

As a twist, there’s a “rage” meter on enemies. Attack too often, and the meter tops out, giving the enemy a strong attack (for example, the skeletons will stun you). But you can empty out the rage meter with certain skills, such as parry. It’s clever and encourages a wider rotation.

Bosses in Project: Gorgon are nothing to mess with. Really. First of all, the game freaks you out by blaring a siren and showing a whole bunch of weird floating text that mostly makes no sense. This is your “intuition warning” telling you that a big bad is up ahead. The tutorial kept flashing warning text boxes at me too, informing me that bosses will not only kill me, but inflict (semi-)permanent curses that you generally don’t want. Then again, I’ve heard that a boss curses players by turning them into cows, which can then be played for the rest of the game. I SO WANT TO BE A COW YOU GUYS.

The only way you can clear a curse is to defeat the boss. I didn’t fight this boss, by the way. The number of player tombstones around convinced me that it wouldn’t be worth it, especially not knowing what curse was attached.

Let’s see… what else happened before I ended up leaving the cave? I almost have to make a bullet point list here:

I learned how to charm rats with cheese and befriended a rodent who fought for me before being incinerated by a skeletal mage.

I leveled up Gourmand by eating gruel.

I found a strange tree that had snow (I think?) falling on it and some cryptic notes nearby. Never found out what that was about.

I solved a couple of puzzles that gave me access to chests full of rewards.

I had to level up my unarmed fighting ability to meet the stat requirements for a new pair of purple boots.

I got set on fire by a puzzle and had to run into a pond to put it out.

I couldn’t beat the MEGASPIDER until I waited around and fought it with two other players. They both died and I barely killed it before dying myself.

I gained the ability to do autopsies and butcher corpses, because I am that gross.

And somewhere along the line, I got infected by lice, which won’t go away until I find a cure.

Oh! Another neat feature is the NPC favor system. You can do quests and give gifts to NPCs to unlock… stuff, I guess. I was talking with this lady, did a quest for her and got a scroll with a clue how to beat a nearby trap. I noticed that there’s an option to “hang out” with her while I’m offline, granting me additional favor points with her when I come back.

Project: Gorgon is certainly weird and rough and full of meta-humor, but it gave me such a ride on that first night that I can’t wait to play it again. Finally, here’s a first-look video that I wanted to pass along if you want to get a quick overview:

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/project-gorgon-first-impressions-or-first-kiss/feed/12Sypgorg1gorg2gorg3gorg4gorg5vendorMarvel Heroes: Join our new supergroup, Massively Underpowered!https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/marvel-heroes-join-our-new-supergroup-massively-underpowered/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/marvel-heroes-join-our-new-supergroup-massively-underpowered/#commentsTue, 28 Jul 2015 13:00:01 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23650Continue reading →]]>So Braxwolf and I were talking about our frustration with finding an active supergroup in Marvel Heroes, which led us to founding our own. Last night, Massively Underpowered came into being, a semi-official guild for both Massively Overpowered, bloggers, and associated circles of gamers.

If you’d like to join up with us, you’re more than welcome — just friend and message Sypster or Braxwolf in-game, and we’ll hook you up. We have no greater plans than to foster a thriving social community and to run group stuff together on occasion, which is perfect for the casual gamer.

While I’m still recovering from my mission trip last week and thus not quite up to long, late-night gaming sessions, I did manage an hour or so of Midtown Monday. This proved fortuitous for my Scarlet Witch, as I got her from 55 to 60 during that period, making her my fifth level 60. I don’t know if I’ll be decking her out after this point, but at least she’s there if I want the option. She’s pretty mindless to play, with AoE fields and really nice signature/ultimates. Sometimes you do want mindless, tho!

Now that she’s there at 60, I’m divided between getting Doctor Doom or Ant-Man the rest of the way. One and then the other, most likely. I’m still waiting for a Doctor Doom costume that isn’t GIGANTIC CAPES, although maybe I should stop holding my breath on that one. He does have tremendously fun powers and summons, tho.

I took advantage of the bonus G sale this past weekend to splurge on a few purchases. Actually, I’m going to admit how dumb I was, because I didn’t read the finer print on another promotion they had going, which I thought was giving you two different random hero tokens for 450 G. Great deal, huh? Two heroes for less than the price of any one in the store. Except that what it actually is is a random selection of two identicial tokens — so either two more ultimate tokens for a hero you already have or a new hero and his/her ultimate upgrade.

Took me two purchaes to figure that one out. The first time I got two Black Panther tokens (who I already have), which I thought was a fluke. Then I got two Things — a new hero, fortunately — and wised up to what was going on.

With my remaining Gs, I bought two cheaper heroes, Black Widow and X-23. I also picked up a costume for X-23, which rewarded me with a bonus random costume — the warbird outfit for Ms. Marvel. That was a costume I was actually eying for her, so go me. At least I came out of it with a handful of new heroes to try out and some snazzy looks. It was all impulse purchases anyway, so no complaining here!

Anyway, if you want to join Massively Underpowered, look for me in-game or sent me a note and I’ll get you set up.

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/marvel-heroes-join-our-new-supergroup-massively-underpowered/feed/4Sypscarlet2scarlet3scarlet6 things that bug me about MMOs that I likehttps://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/6-things-that-bug-me-about-mmos-that-i-like/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/6-things-that-bug-me-about-mmos-that-i-like/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 13:00:35 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23652Continue reading →]]>I think we’re always loathe to outright criticize MMOs that we really like in fear that it will push players away from games that are otherwise terrific. But if you are too scared to do so, then you gain blinders and lose perspective.

Thus, this is my small Monday morning measure of attaining balance by admitting to six things that kind of really bug me about MMOs that I like.

WildStar: For a game that has made such a big, big deal about customization (and excels in this in many areas), the fact that classes can wield one and only one type of weapon (set) vastly annoys me. In most MMOs you can choose from different weapon types and experience different visual flair and animations, but here? What you got at level 1 is the same at level 50.

The Secret World: This game’s wonderful storytelling and nuanced body language is sometimes undercut by faces that are ugly and border on the uncanny valley. The facial art style doesn’t gel for me the way that it should and serves as an irritant when I’m trying to get into the tale.

Marvel Heroes: This game’s social tools are really lacking, I’ve found. There needs to be support to join multiple supergroups, better supergroup tools, and a proper LFG tool. Fast track these, Gazillion!

Star Wars: The Old Republic: I do love that the game has housing, but coming from other MMOs like RIFT and WildStar, it can’t help but fail to live up to the industry standard. I am not a fan of the clumsy hooks and placement interface that makes sorting through one’s decor far more tedious than it should be.

RIFT: Such ugly armor. Such ugly. It makes the awesome wardrobe system weep in frustration. What is up with the armor artists in this game? Why must we all look like first drafts of a ninth grader’s fantasy portfolio?

Neverwinter: Cryptic not only failed to live up to the insanely high standard it set for character creation in City of Heroes, but failed to live up to the industry medium in this respect. I am stunned how hard it is to make good or interesting-looking characters in this game with the sub-par customization options on display. Do they even know how hair looks?

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/6-things-that-bug-me-about-mmos-that-i-like/feed/10SypbugmeSWTOR: Bounty hunting’s more fun with Mako!https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/swtor-bounty-huntings-more-fun-with-mako/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/swtor-bounty-huntings-more-fun-with-mako/#commentsFri, 24 Jul 2015 13:00:16 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23642Continue reading →]]>At the SWTOR endgame, it kind of stinks that your interaction with your companions is limited to finishing up their storylines and the occasional combat quote they throw out. Going through the bounty hunter storyline is reminding me of how fun it is to have a companion there for color, commentary, and even ethical influence.

For starting companions, I have to give it up to Mako. Lots better than some other starting companions I’ve seen. Little young and naive, but she’s also got a wickedly funny streak to her that’s made me chortle more than once during dialogue bits.

Hey look, that’s the new (third edition) Yeeti on the right there! I agonized over skin color, particularly the traditional blue, the movie green, or this bright pink/peach/red hue. Pink won out just to be different from the blue Chiss.

Also, it’s not a Star Wars story without some implied incest, right?

Star Wars: Big Important Desk of the Old Republic. I would totally play that.

I did try out the other Mako heads that I was offered early on in the personal story, but none of them fit her as well as this one.

When Mako isn’t there to be snarky during cutscenes, I’ve been sending her out on a non-stop series of crew mission runs. I figure that doing the 12x thing also means that I’m not going to be spending as much time on each planet and could easily outpace slicing node level requirements. I also picked up treasure hunting for when I get more companions, because I’m really going to need those companion gifts to make up for the lack of dialogue encounters that will offer influence points. Plus, it’s pretty amusing to me to send out the crew to bring back gifts that I’m going to be giving right back to them. Like handing a relative a gift card and telling them to go shop for their own birthday gift.

Financing all of those crew missions will be my operative’s task; I’ll get to do a bit of farming here and there. Got her well over a million credits the other night, which is nothing to regulars but was a first for me. Trying to decide how much money I’m going to be sinking into expanding and decking out my stronghold, as it’s been somewhat neglected.

]]>https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/swtor-bounty-huntings-more-fun-with-mako/feed/2Sypmako1mako2mako3Soundtrack Thursday: The Mighty Quest for Epic Loothttps://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/soundtrack-thursday-the-mighty-quest-for-epic-loot/
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/soundtrack-thursday-the-mighty-quest-for-epic-loot/#commentsThu, 23 Jul 2015 13:00:24 +0000http://biobreak.wordpress.com/?p=23637Continue reading →]]>Every now and then I want to splurge on sharing the highlights of a particular soundtrack — and today’s is one of those lesser-known ones that nevertheless deserves some serious attention. The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is a straight-up fun and rousing trip, reminding me a bit of Hans Zimmer’s style. My only complaint is that it’s a mere 10 tracks long, but at least pretty much every one of those tracks are eminently listenable! And as a bonus, pretty much all of the track names are groan-worthy puns.